Jem

FOURTEEN

EVEN IN JEM’S favorable conditions — air denser, gravity less than Earth — there was a peremptory equation of lift. Danny Dalehouse could carry whatever he liked simply by adding balloons to his cluster. Charlie had no such power. He could carry what he could carry, and there was an end to it. To carry any of Dalehouse’s gifts meant sacrificing ballast and therefore mobility. To carry them all was impossible. When Dalehouse scolded him for giving the crossbow to a flock-mate — at a time when the ha’aye’i seemed everywhere! — Charlie sang placatingly, “But I must keep the speaker-to-air! I cannot have both, cannot have both.”

“And if you are killed by a ha’aye’i, what good will the radio do you?” But Charlie didn’t even seem to understand the question. He and the flock were singing a sort of rhapsody about the speaker-to-air and how it enriched their chorus; and Dalehouse abandoned the effort.

Charlie’s possession of the radio wasn’t all good. It meant that Dalehouse could really keep in contact with the flock from the ground as long as they stayed in line of sight or somewhere near it, and that fact had not escaped Major Santangelo, the new camp commandant. It was getting less easy to escape into the air. At the same time, it was getting less attractive to stay in the camp. Santangelo had established command at once. He had proved it by sending Harriet and Alex Woodring off to try to make contact with a distant tribe of burrowers, hopefully uncontaminated by contact with the Greasies. And the camp was being run along increasingly strict military lines.

Dalehouse broke through the flock’s song. “I must return. Four more flocks of our people are joining us, and I wish to be there when they arrive.”

“We will come with you, we will come with you—”

“No, you won’t,” he contradicted. “Too many ha’aye’i near the camp.” That was the truth, and that, too, was a consequence of the “gifts” he had given them. Since the Oilies had found out that Santangelo’s “scientific instruments” were being used by the balloonists to keep tabs on what was going on in their camp they had taken to shooting down every balloonist that came within a kilometer of them. So balloonists were growing locally scarce, and the predators hungry.

“Fly by the Wet Valleys,” he commanded. “Learn if our people are well there.”

“No need,” sang Charlie. “See the wings of your friend ’Appy coming from there even now!” And back behind the shoreline, there it was, Cappy’s little biplane coming back from visiting the outpost, circling in for a landing.

“Then good-bye,” sang Dalehouse, and expertly vented hydrogen until he came down to the level of the onshore winds that carried him back to the camp.

He was getting really good at ballooning, and he was smiling as he drifted down over the commandant’s pet project, the little mud fort on the shore, and dropped to earth on the first bluff. He gathered up the deflated balloons, slung their loose-netted bulk over his shoulder, and walked happily enough up to the hydrogen shed.

That was the end of happiness. Half the camp was gathered around Kappelyushnikov and Santangelo, farther up the hill. Jim Morrissey and half a dozen others were coming toward him, their faces grim. Dalehouse caught Morrissey’s arm as he passed. “What’s the matter?” he demanded.

Morrissey paused. “Trouble, Danny. Something’s happened to the outcamp. Harriet, Woodring, Dugachenko — they’re missing. Gappy says the camp’s been ripped apart, and they’re gone.”

“Harriet?”

“All of them, damn it! And there’s blood and Krinpit tracks all over the place. Let go, we’ve got to get down to Castle Santangelo — in case they invade by sea, I guess. Anyway, you’d better get up there and see what your orders are.”

Orders! How like an army officer to overreact and start issuing orders in all directions! Dalehouse let them go past and walked belligerently up to the group around Santangelo and the pilot. Someone was saying, ” — I didn’t know there were any Krinpit in the Wet Valleys.”

“If you were in Beverly Hills you wouldn’t know there were any rattlesnakes in California, either, but if you wandered around Hollywood Hills they’d bite your ass off. That’s enough for arguing,” the major said. “Those of you with assigned defense posts, get to them. We’ve got four ships coming in in the next twenty hours. It’d be a good time for anybody to catch us off guard, and we’re not going to be caught. Move it!”

Dalehouse, who had been given no assigned defense post, was not anxious to get one. He moved away briskly with the others as the group broke up, circling around the outskirts to approach the communications shack.

Inside, the comm team on duty was watching a continually shifting display of moving symbols against a green grid of coordinate lines: the four resupply ships, already in orbit around Jem, making their final course corrections before dropping down to the surface. Dalehouse had expected Kappelyushnikov to show up there, and he did, moments after Dalehouse himself.

“Ah, Danny,” he said dismally, “you have good taste for finding nice place to fuck off. Wait one while I see if asshole traffic controller has accidentally got ships in right orbit.” He peered into the screen, grumbled at the crew on duty, then shrugged and returned to Dalehouse. “Is on course,” he reported. “Now question is, is course right? We find out. Poor Gasha!”

“Are you sure she’s dead?”

“Have not seen corpus delicti, no. But Danny, there was very much blood, two liters at least.”

“But you didn’t see the bodies.”

“No, Danny, did not. Saw blood. Saw tents chopped up to fine Venetian lace, clothes all over, food, radio smashed, little scratchy bug-tracks everywhere I looked. No bodies. So I yelled some, listened, poked into bushes. Then came home. So poor Gasha, not to mention poor Alexei and poor Gregor.”

Danny shook his head wonderingly. “The Krinpit are damn noisy beasts. I don’t see how they could catch the camp by surprise, and if they weren’t surprised they should’ve been able to take care of themselves. Santangelo made them carry guns.”

Kappelyushnikov shrugged. “You want to, I fly you there and you study scene of crime for yourself. Right now, excuse. First ship is about to come out of orbit, and I must keep controller up to personal high standard of accuracy.”

Half the personnel in the first ship were a combat team — a fact which would have come as a distinctly unpleasant shock to Dalehouse at one time but now seemed less so. While they were still in orbit, the Vietnamese colonel commanding them had been briefed by radio, and the squad formed up outside the ship as they debarked, and immediately drew weapons and trotted to reinforce the perimeter guards. The second ship was also mostly military, but among the faces was one Dalehouse recognized. It took him a moment to make the connection, but then it was clear: the Bulgarian girl who had interceded for him and Marge Menninger in Sofia. He called to her and waved; she looked startled, then smiled — rather attractively, he thought — and called a greeting.

That was as far as it went just then, for by that time the new colonel had conferred with Major Santangelo, and the whole camp was mobilized. The Vietnamese — his name was Tree — commandeered Kappelyushnikov and the airplane, and they were gone for more than two hours, orbiting the camp in widening circles, first at high altitude, then nearly brushing the tops of the trees. All the tents had to come down. By the time the third rocket landed the tents were up again, now lined up six to a row, four rows paralleling each other, in what had become a company street. At each corner of the encampment pits were dug, and out of the third ship came machine guns and flamethrowers to go into them, while the few rank-less nonspecialists who had not been tapped for unloading, tent detail, or pit digging had been set to pounding steel stakes into the ground ten meters outside the limits of the camp. Among the third ship’s cargo were two huge reels of barbed wire, and by the time the last ship began its drop they had been strung along the stakes.

For once the Jemman skies were almost clear as the fourth ship came into sight high over the far horizon of the ocean-lake. First there was a broad, bright, meteoritic splash of light as the ablative entry shields soaked up the worst of the excess energy and spilled it away in incandescent shards. Then the ship itself was in naked-eye range, falling free for a moment. A quick blue-white jet flare made a course correction. Then the trigger parachute came free, pulling the three main chutes after it. The ship seemed to hang almost motionless in the ruddy air; but slowly, slowly it grew larger until it was almost overhead, two hundred meters up. Then the chutes were jettisoned and the ship lowered itself, on its blinding, ear-destroying rockets, to the beach.

Dalehouse had seen, he counted, five of those landings now, not including the one he himself had been in. They were all almost miraculous to watch. And they were all different. The ships themselves were different. Of the new four, only one was the tall, silver shape of his own ship. The other three were squat double cones, ten meters from rounded top to rounded bottom as they crouched on their landing struts, nearly twenty meters across at their widest.

The first person out of the ship was Marge Menninger.

It was not a surprise. The surprising part was that she hadn’t come earlier. Dalehouse realized he had been half-expecting her on every ship that landed. She looked tired, disheveled, and harried, and obviously she had been sleeping in her olive-drab fatigues for all of the transit-time week. But she also looked pretty good to Dalehouse. The female members of the Food Bloc party had not been chosen for their sexuality. Apart from a rare occasional grapple with someone he didn’t really like very much — sometimes impelled by tickling one of the balloonists into parting with a few sprays of joy-juice, sometimes by nothing more than boredom — Dalehouse’s sex life had been sparse, joyless, and dull. Margie reminded him of better times.

Margie had also come up in the world since Sofia; the insignia on her collar tabs were no longer captain’s bars but full colonel’s eagles, and as she moved aside to let the rest of the troops debark, Colonel Tree and Major Santangelo were already beginning to report to her. She listened attentively while her eyes were taking inventory of the camp, the defense perimeter, and the progress of the debarkation. Then she began speaking in short, quick sentences. Dalehouse was not close enough to hear the words, but there was no doubt that the sentences were orders. Tree argued about something.

Good-humoredly, Margie slipped her arm around his shoulder while she answered, then patted his bottom as he moved off, scowling, to do as he was told. She and Santangelo moved up toward the command center, still talking; and Dalehouse began to revise his notions of what to expect from seeing Margie Menninger again.

But as they approached where he was standing, she caught sight of him and threw out her arms. “Hey, Dan! Beautiful to see you!” She kissed him enthusiastically. “You’re looking real fine, you know? Or as close to fine as you can in this light.”

“You, too,” he said. “And congratulations.”

“On what, being here? Oh, you mean the eagles. Well, they had to give me that to handle Guy Tree. Dimitrova ought to be around somewhere. Have you seen her? Now if we could only get the Pak to come for a visit, we could all have a nice time talking over good old days in the Bulgarian slammer.”

“Colonel Menninger—”

“All right, major, I’m coming. Stay loose, Dan. We’ve got catching up to do.”

He stared after her. In the old Rotsy days in college, before he had dropped out as it became clear that nobody would ever need to fight wars anymore, colonels had seemed quite different. It wasn’t just that she was female. And pretty, and young. Colonels had seemed to have more on their minds than Margie Menninger did — especially colonels coming into a situation where the panic button had been so recently pressed.

A husky man in a sergeant’s uniform was speaking to him. “You Dr. Dalehouse? There’s mail for you at the library.”

“Oh, sure. Thanks.” Dalehouse took note of the fact that the sergeant’s expression was both surprised and a little amused, but he understood both reactions. “Nice kid, the colonel,” he said benevolently. He didn’t wait for an answer.

Most of the “mail” was from Michigan State and the Double-A-L, but one of the letters was a surprise. It was from Polly! So long ago, so far away, Dalehouse had almost forgotten he had ever had a wife. He could think of no reason why she would be writing him. Nearly everyone in the first two parties had also received mail, and the lines at the viewers were discouraging. Dalehouse put the collection of fiches in his pocket and headed for Kappelyushnikov’s private store of goodies in the hydrogen shed. The pilot had long since scrounged the things he deemed essential to the good life on Jem, and among them was his own microfiche viewer. With considerable curiosity, Dalehouse slid his ex-wife’s letter into position.

Dear Daniel: I don’t know if you knew that Grandfather Medway died last summer. When his will was probated it turned out he left the Grand Haven house to us. I guess he just never got around to changing the will after our divorce. It isn’t worth a whole lot, but of course it’s worth something — the lawyer says its assessed value is $43,500. I’m a little embarrassed about this. I have this strong feeling that says you’re going to say you’ll waive your share. Well, if that’s really what you want I’d appreciate it if you’d sign a release for me and have it notarized — is there anybody there who’s a notary? Otherwise, will you tell me what you’d like to do? We are all well, Daniel, in spite of everything. Detroit had another blackout last week, and the rioting and looting were pretty bad, and the new emergency surtaxes are going to be hard to handle. Not to mention the heatless days and the moratorium on daytime TV and the scary news about international politics. Most people seem to think it’s because of what’s going on up where you are — but that’s not your fault, is it? I remember you with a lot of affection, Daniel, and hope you do me. Pauline

Sitting on the edge of Kappelyushnikov’s personal cot, Dalehouse put the viewer down thoughtfully. The Grand Haven house. It was really only a bungalow, at least fifty years old and only sketchily modernized. But he and Polly had spent their honeymoon in it, in a snowy January with the wind whipping up over the bluff from Lake Michigan all day and all night. Of course she could have the house. Somebody in the camp could probably notarize a quitclaim, at least legally enough to satisfy some up-country surrogate court.

He stretched out on the cot, thinking about his ex-wife and her letter. News from Earth had not seemed either very interesting or very relevant, and Dalehouse had spent a lot more time thinking about the balloonists and the complications of life on Jem than about the brief paragraphs on the camp wall newspaper. But Polly made it sound serious. Riots, looting, blackouts, heatless days! He decided he would have to talk to some of the new people as soon as they quit bustling around and getting settled. That Bulgarian girl, for instance. She could fill him in on what was really happening back home, and, besides, she was a pretty nice person. He lay drowsily trying to decide whether it was better to do that now or to keep on enjoying the private space to think his own thoughts.

The decision was taken out of his hands. “Hello, Dr. Dalehouse,” came Ana Dimitrova’s voice. “Mr. Kappelyushnikov said you’d be here. But I must confess I was not sure he was in earnest.”

Dalehouse opened his eyes and sat up as Gappy and the girl stooped through the entrance to the shed. The pilot’s expression made it clear that, whatever he had told the girl, he had hoped there would be no one there, but he rallied and said, “Ah, Anyushka, you must learn to trust me. Here is old friend to see you, Danny.”

Dalehouse accepted the formal handshake she offered. She had a nice smile, he observed. In fact, if she had not chosen to wear her hair pulled severely back and avoid the use of makeup, she could have been quite attractive.

“I was hoping to get a chance to talk to you, Miss Dimitrova.”

“Heavens, Ana, please. Old cellmates must not be formal with each other.”

“But on other hand,” said the pilot, “must not impose on dear Danny, who is no doubt hungry and must get to mess hall at once or risk missing excellent dog-meat-and-slime meal.”

“Nice try, Gappy,” Dalehouse acknowledged. “No, I’m not hungry. How are things on Earth, Ana? I’ve just been hearing some bad stories.”

Her expression clouded. “If the stories you have heard have been of violence and disaster, then, yes, that is how things are. Just before we left the television news spoke of martial law in the city of Los Angeles, and also in several cities of Europe. And there was some sinking of an Australian naval vessel off the coast of Peru.”

“Dear God.”

“Oh, there is much more than that, Dr. Dalehouse — Dan. But we have brought all the recent newspapers, as well as tapes of television programs — it is really quite an extensive library, I understand. I believe there are more than twenty thousand books in microfiche, at Colonel Menninger’s express orders.”

“Twenty thousand books?” Dalehouse shook his head. “You know, I never thought of her as a reader.”

Ana smiled and sat cross-legged on the floor before him. “Please, let us be comfortable. I too am sometimes astonished at Colonel Menninger.” She hesitated, then said, “She is not, however, always to be relied on. I had expected some time to consult with my government before coming here, on her promise. But it did not happen. None of us were allowed to leave the camp until we were flown to the launching point. Perhaps it was because she did not want to risk exposing us to the unstable conditions we might have found.”

“As bad as that?”

“Worse,” growled Kappelyushnikov. “You see, Danny? We should be grateful to be here on safe tropical-paradise planet like Jem, where only once in awhile isolated party gets wiped out by giant cockroaches.”

“That’s another thing,” said Danny. “Marge Menninger doesn’t seem particularly worried, after the flap yesterday.”

“No reason to worry, dear Danny. I and little Vietnamese colonel have scoured every centimeter from ten klicks in all directions, using magnetometer, IR scanners, and good piloting eyes. Is no metal thing bigger than breadbasket anywhere around, I promise, and not more than three, maybe six, creatures larger than crabrat. So sleep safely tonight, Danny. In own bed,” he added pointedly, and did not need to add “soon.”

Nan was quicker than he. “That is good advice, Gappy,” she said, standing up. “I think I will take it for myself.”

“I will escort you,” rumbled Kappelyushnikov. “No, do not disturb self, Danny. I see you are quite tired.”

Ana sighed. “Gospodin Kappelyushnikov,” she scolded, “apart from the fact that I am tired and quite disoriented from all these new experiences, you and I have barely met. I do hope that we will be friends. Please don’t make that difficult by behaving like some Cossack with a peasant maid.”

Gappy looked abashed, then angry. Then he grinned. “Anyushka, you are fine Slavic girl. Yes, we will be friends at once. Later on, perhaps more — but,” he added hastily, “only in proper Soviet style, no premature touching, all right? Now let us all three stroll through pleasant Jemman murk to your tent.”

Ana laughed and slapped him on the shoulder. “Russian bear! Come, then.” She led the way outside and stood for a moment, glancing around at the quieting camp. The floodlights that marked official “day” were out, but Kung was clear and ruddy in the sky overhead. “I do not know if I can get used to a world where it is never night,” she complained.

“Is severe handicap for certain purposes, yes,” Kappelyushnikov agreed. They climbed the bluff and walked along it toward the female tent area. At the very edge, surrounded by a border of rounded stones in lieu of a lawn, was a tent larger than the others. It already had a flat rock before it stenciled Col. M. Menninger, Commanding.

“Margie’s doing herself well,” Dalehouse commented.

“Is privilege of rank,” said Kappelyushnikov, but he was staring down the beach at the four new ships, one tall and slim, three squat, resting on their landing struts.

“That’s strange, isn’t it?” Dalehouse said. “Those three are quite unlike the others.”

Gappy glanced at him. “You are truly observant, Danny.” But his tone was strange.

“All right, Gappy. What’s the secret?”

“Secret? Simple pilot is not told secrets. But I have eyes, and I can make conjectures.”

“Come on, Gappy. You’re going to tell us your conjecture sooner or later. Why not do it now?”

“Two conjectures,” he corrected. “First, observe shape of three new spacecraft. Imagine sliced in half, forming two little cones each. Then imagine all six cones set on base around perimeter of camp, and the glass removed from those long, narrow ports that are so unnecessary for navigation of space. What have we then?”

“Upside-down cones with unglazed long, narrow ports,” Dalehouse guessed.

“Yes, exactly. Only when installed on defense perimeter we have other name for them. We call them ‘machine-gun emplacements.’ ” He sighed. “I think is triumph of two-faced engineering design, not accident, that this is so.”

“But one can scarcely believe that,” objected Ana. “This is, after all, a peaceable exploration party, not an invading army!”

“Yes, also exactly. Is only coincidence that so many members of peaceable exploration party are also soldiers.”

Both Dalehouse and the girl were silent, studying the landed spaceships. “I would like not to believe you,” said Ana at last. “But perhaps—”

“Wait a minute!” Dalehouse interrupted. “Those three ships — they don’t have any return stage! That’s why they’re so short!”

Kappelyushnikov nodded. “And that is second conjecture,” he added heavily. “Only is not really conjecture. Library of twenty thousand books is not light reading for weekend. Spacecraft that come apart to make forts are not for round trip. Vessels without return-capsule capability are not accident. Total of sum is clear. For many of us, is not intended we ever go back to dear old planet Earth.”

Getting into the Jemman sky again the next day was a victory for Dalehouse, and he did not know how many more of those victories he would have. The day had begun unpromisingly. As soon as the “morning” lights were on he had found a mini-memo on the bench inside his tent door to let him know that, as from 0800 hours that standard day, he was to consider himself under military discipline with the assimilated rank of captain. On the way to breakfast he had passed an orderly carrying two covered trays into Margie’s tent. An orderly! Not even the late Harriet Santori had gone that far. And on the way back past the tent, the Vietnamese colonel had been coming out.

Who Marge Menninger kept in her bed was no concern of his, and all this other military Mickey Mouse was irrelevant to his purpose on Jem. All the same, Dalehouse was not enjoying his flight as much as usual that day.

For one thing, Charlie and his flock were nowhere around — partly because Major Santangelo had insisted they overfly some of the other parts of Jem to bring back intelligence. Mostly because Dalehouse himself was reluctant to have them there, with so many ha’aye’i waiting in the clouds to prey on them. At least he had insisted they stay a full two kilometers away from the Greasy camp; maybe that was enough for safety. Meanwhile, Dalehouse had his lightweight carbine with him, and he was hoping to take out at least a couple of the ha’aye’i before Charlie drifted back. There was already one balloonist in the camp as a sort of combination convalescent and pet, waiting for his ha’aye’i-ripped gasbag to mend enough for flight. Dalehouse didn’t want Charlie to join him.

Trying to look appetizing, he drifted under the base of a low cumulus humilis. It was exactly the sort of place the air-sharks chose for hiding. But if there was one in the cloud it wasn’t hungry just then.

He vented gas and dropped away from the cloud as the updraft began to suck him toward it; if there were ha’aye’i, he wanted to meet them in clear air, not where they could be upon him before he could shoot. A return flow carried him back toward the camp, and he looked down from half a kilometer on a busy scene. About twenty people were still unloading the new ships. Others were clearing brush and forest to widen the perimeter around the camp, and up past the camp toward the hills, in a natural meadow of thorn-bearing ground vines, a tiny tractor was plowing furrows. That was new! The tractor must have come out of one of the ships, and the furrows looked exactly as though someone was planning to farm.

That was reasonable enough, and even good news — certainly they could use fresh vegetables, and if the Greasies could grow them so could the Fats. But something about it troubled Dalehouse. He couldn’t put his finger on it; something about using soldiers to farm? Forced labor on land?

He dismissed the thought; he was getting too low.

He vented some ballast, and the water sluiced down on the newly plowed land like a toy-scale rain shower. The thing that was tickling his memory was beginning to be annoying. For some reason, it reminded him of his undergraduate anthropology professor, a gentle and undemanding man a lot like Alex Woodring -

Like Alex Woodring, who was dead. Along with Gasha and the Bulgarian corporal he had never really come to know.

He was having none but depressing thoughts. His reserves of hydrogen and ballast were getting a little low, and evidently the ha’aye’i had learned to distinguish between a balloonist and a human being swinging from a netted cluster of bags. They were not to be tricked this day. Reluctantly he swung back over the beach, vented gas, and dropped to the pebbly sand.

By the time he had picked up and stowed the deflated balloons Margie Menninger was approaching, along with the woman sergeant who was her orderly. “Nice flying, Danny,” she said. “Looks like fun. Will you take me up with you sometime?”

He stood regarding her for a moment. She really looked very pretty, even in the maroon Kung-light that darkened her lips and hid the gold of her hair. Her fatigues were new and sharply pressed, and her short hairdo flopped becomingly as she moved. “Any time you say, Marge. Or is it ‘colonel’?”

She laughed. “All you brand-new officers are the same, very rank conscious. We’re off duty right now, Danny, so it’s Marge. You’ll learn.”

“I’m not sure I want to learn how to be a soldier.”

“Oh, you’ll catch on,” she promised. “Tinka, take the point. Let’s go for a walk, shall we?”

The sergeant moved out ahead of them, trotting to the barbed-wire enclosure. The troops in the pit at the corner lifted a section of the wire aside so the three of them could pass through; the sergeant in charge gave Margie a soft salute, and she nodded pleasantly back.

“If a person went swimming in this water,” she said, “would she find herself being eaten up by something?”

“Not so far. We do it all the time.”

“Looks pretty tempting. Care to join me?”

Dalehouse shook his head, not in negation but in wonder. “Margie, you’re something. I thought colonels had to keep busy, especially when they think their troops need armed guards and barbed-wire fences day and night.”

“Dear Danny,” she said good-naturedly, “I haven’t been a colonel very long, but I taught the theory of it to a couple thousand plebes at the Point. I think I have a pretty good grasp of the basic principles. A colonel doesn’t have to do much; she just has to see that everybody else gets everything done. I already put in four hours of pretty solid work this morning.”

“Yes, I saw Colonel Tree coming out of your tent.”

She looked at him thoughtfully. She didn’t comment but went on, “As to your other point, the perimeter watch is SOP from now on, but there are patrols in the woods and aerial reconnaissance every hour, and besides, Tinka’s a qualified expert with all hand weapons. I think you’ll be all right.”

“I wasn’t worried about my personal safety.”

“No, you weren’t. You were worried about the troops under my command, and on their behalf I thank you for your concern.” She grinned and patted his arm. “Hold on a minute.” She fished a cigarette case out of her pocket, ducked behind him to get out of the wind, and expertly lit up. She inhaled deeply and held it, passing him the joint. When she exhaled, she called to the sergeant, “Tinka!”

“Yes’m.”

“Next batch of dope you clean for us, save the seeds. Let’s see if we can grow the little buggers here.”

“Yes’m.”

Danny took a long hit, beginning to relax. Being with Margie Menninger was never dull, at least. As he slowly exhaled he looked her over in some admiration. She had adjusted at once to the heat, the disconcertingly low gravity, the thick air that had troubled them all for weeks. She was some kind of woman.

By the time they had finished passing the joint back and forth they were out of sight of the perimeter guard where the beach widened under a high, bare bluff. Margie stopped, looking around. “Seems as good as any,” she commented. “Tinka, take your position.”

“Yes’m.” The sergeant scrambled agilely up the side of the bluff to the top, and Margie shucked her fatigues. She wore nothing underneath. “If you’re coming, come. If not, stay and help Tinka keep watch.” And she splashed into the water.

Dope, company, or whatever, Dalehouse was feeling better than he had all day. He laughed out loud, then skinned out of his own clothes and joined her.

Ten minutes later they were both back on the beach, lying not very comfortably on their clothes, waiting to dry.

“Ouch,” said Margie. “If I ever get any extra people for punishment detail, I think I’ll see if they can get the rocks out of this sand.”

“You get used to it.”

“Only if I have to, Danny. I’m going to make this a nice camp if I can — good duty. For instance, you know what we’re going to have tonight?”

He rolled his head to look at her. “What?”

“The first official Jemman Food-Exporting Bloc encampment dance.”

“A dance?”

She grinned. “See what I mean? Those turkeys who were running this place never thought of that. But there’s nothing to it: spread out some flats on the dirt, put a few tapes in the machine, and there you are. Saturday night special. Best thing in the world for morale.”

“You are probably about the US Army’s best colonel for having fun,” Dalehouse said.

“For all the rest of being a colonel, too, Danny. Don’t you forget it.”

“Well, I won’t, Margie. I believe it. Only it’s kind of hard to remember under the, ah, present circumstances.”

“Well, I’ll put my clothes back on if it’ll help you concentrate. This isn’t just fun and games. I wanted to talk to you.”

“About what?”

“Whatever you want to tell me. How you think things are going. What isn’t being done that ought to be. What you’ve learned being here that I haven’t found out yet.”

He propped himself up on an elbow to look at her. She returned his gaze serenely, scratching her bare abdomen just above the pubic hair. “Well,” he said, “I guess you’ve seen all the reports about making contact with the sentients.”

“Memorized them, Danny. I even saw some of the sentients at Detrick, but they weren’t in very good condition. Especially the Creepy.”

“The burrower? We haven’t had very good luck with them.”

“Piss-poor, I’d say.”

“Well — yes, that’s fair. But we did get about ten specimens, two of them alive. And Morrissey has a whole report on them not transmitted yet. He says they’re farmers — from underneath, which is kind of an interesting idea. They plant some kind of tubers in the roofs of their tunnels. He was planning to talk to that expert you were supposed to bring — I don’t know her name.”

“Sondra Leckler? She didn’t come, Danny. I had her scratched.”

“Why?”

“Political. She’s Canadian.” She looked at him thoughtfully. “Does that fact mean anything to you?”

“Not a thing.”

“No, I didn’t think so. Canada voted for Peru’s thousand-mile limit in the UN. That’s cozying with the Peeps, right there. And everybody knows Canada’s got the hots for the Greasies because of their goddam Athabasca tar sands. They’re politically unreliable right now, Danny. There were four Canadians scheduled for this shipment, and I scratched all their asses right off.”

“That sounds pretty paranoid,” he commented.

“No, realistic. I’ve got no time to teach you the facts of life, Danny. What else? I don’t mean about the burrowers.”

He regarded her thoughtfully. She lay on her back, hands behind her head, comfortable in her nudity as she squinted toward the glowing red Kung. For a slightly plump girl her waist curved beautifully into her hips, and her breasts were rounded even while she lay flat on her back. But under that blond hair was a brain Dalehouse did not fully understand.

He dropped back and said, “Well, there’s the balloonists. I know the most about them. Our regular flock is off toward the Heat Pole, but there’s another one out over the water. They’re basically territorial, but—”

“You were at the Greasy camp awhile ago, weren’t you?”

“Yeah. When we were still on visiting terms. Is that what you want me to tell you about?”

“Among other things.”

“All right. They’ve got a hell of a lot of stuff we don’t, Margie.” He described the machine that molded building blocks, the plasma generator, the farm, the air conditioning, the ice.

“Sounds pretty nice,” she commented. “We’ll have all that stuff too, Danny, I promise you. Did you see a plane and four gliders?”

“No. There was an airstrip — Gappy commented on it; it didn’t make sense, with just a helicopter. But they didn’t have a plane then.”

“They do now. I thought they’d sneaked a reinforcement in that you didn’t catch. Did you know about the base on Farside?”

“Farside? You mean the dark half of Jem? What the hell would anyone want there?”

“That’s what I need to find out. But they’ve got it. Why do you think I stayed four extra orbits before I came down? I made damn sure I photomapped and radar-surveyed everything I could; I know every satellite around Jem, I know every spot on the surface that’s using energy, and I don’t like all of what I know. The Farside base was a real shock. Did you see any children in the Greasy camp?”

“Children? Hell, no! Why would—”

“Well, I think they’re moving whole families in, Danny, which seems to indicate they’ve got more than an exploring expedition in mind.”

“How could you tell whether they had children from space?”

“No way, Danny. I didn’t say the orbital reconnaissance was the only way I knew what was going on with the Greasies. One other thing. No, two. Have they got a baseball field?”

“Baseball?” He was sitting up now, staring at her. “What the hell would they do with a baseball field? Cricket, maybe, and no doubt football, but—”

“That’s a break,” she said, without explaining. “Last question. Did you happen to run into a fellow named Tamil?”

“I don’t think so.” Dalehouse thought hard. “Wait a minute. Short fellow with a shaved head? Chess player?”

“I don’t know. He’s an Indonesian.”

“Well, I’m not sure, but I think there was a petrochemist with a name like that. I didn’t talk to him. I don’t think he spoke English.”

“Pity.” Margie ruminated for a moment, then sat up, shading her eyes. “Are those your balloonists out there?”

As Dalehouse turned to look, Margie was standing, taking a few steps toward the shore, and what he looked at was not the sky but her. The artist Hogarth had said that the most beautiful line in nature was the curve of a woman’s back, and Margie, silhouetted against the ruddy sky, was a fine figure of a woman. Half-amused, Dalehouse realized by the stirrings in his groin that he was beginning to display interest. But only beginning. The stimulus was that beautiful and remembered butt; the suppressant was the things she said. He would be some little while figuring out just how it was he did feel about Margie Menninger.

Then he got his eyes past her and forgot the stirrings. “There are ha’aye’i out there!” he said furiously.

“What’ys?”

“They’re predators. That’s not our regular flock; they just drifted in, because of the lights, most likely. And those clouds are full of ha’aye’i!” The flock was close enough to be heard now, singing loudly, only a few hundred meters away. And far beyond and above them three slimmer shapes were swooping toward them.

“That’s a what-you-call-it there? Jesus! Look at that mother,” she cried, as the first of the airsharks expertly ripped at the bag of a huge female, slipped past, turned end-for-end, and reversed itself. It came back ten meters lower to catch the deflated balloonist as it fell, braying its death song. “That’s a fucking Immelmann that thing just did! Nobody’s done that since World War One!”

“This isn’t a performance, damn it! They’re dying!” Two more of the predators had struck, and two more balloonists were caught farther down the shore. But at least it was not Charlie’s flock. None of those victims were friends. “See that stuff coming out of the female?” he asked. “Those are her eggs. They’re long spider-silk kind of things. They’ll float around forever, but they won’t be fertilized because none of the males have—”

“Fuck her eggs, little buddy. I’m rooting for the shark! What a killing machine! Shit, Danny, I can see why things are going badly here. You people picked the wrong allies. We ought to team up with the sharks!”

Dalehouse was scandalized. “They’re animals! They’re not even intelligent!”

“Show me a professor,” she said, “and I’ll show you a fart-brain. How intelligent do you have to be to fight?”

“Christ. The balloonists are our friends. We’ve got them doing surveillance for us. The ha’aye’i would never do that. Now you want us to line up with their natural enemies?”

“Well, I can see there might be problems.” She stared wistfully at the ha’aye’i, which had ripped away the inedible bag and was now feasting on the soft parts of its still-living prey. “Too bad,” she said philosophically. She stepped back toward Danny, still watching the spectacle, and took his hand.

“You’re really sure about this? There’s no way to persuade our gooks to get along with the sharks?”

“No way at all! Even if you could somehow reach the ha’aye’i to explain what you wanted. The ha’aye’i don’t even sing. That’s the whole meaning of life to balloonists. They could never deal with creatures that didn’t sing.”

“Oh?” Margie looked at him thoughtfully. Then she released his hand and sat down again, leaning back on her arms and looking up at him. “Tell me, Danny, would you like to make me sing?”

He stared at her. Why, she was sexually excited by watching the slaughter!

He glanced at the top of the bluff, where the back of the head of the orderly was motionless in sight. “Maybe we’d better be getting back,” he said.

“What’s the matter, sweetie? Don’t like having an audience? Tinka won’t bother us.”

“I don’t care about her.”

“Then what?” she asked cheerfully. “Hey, I bet I can guess. You’re hassled about the colonel.”

“Tree? He’s got nothing to do with me.”

“Aw, come off it, sweets.” She patted the ground beside her. After a moment, he sat down, not very close. “You think I’ve been getting it on with old Nguyen the Tryin’.”

“No. I don’t think it, I know it.”

“And suppose I have?”

“Your business,” he said promptly. “I’m not saying it isn’t. Maybe I’ve got some sexist-pig notions, but—”

“But no maybe. You fucking well do, Danny-boy.” She was smiling without softness now.

He shrugged. “Let’s go back, colonel.”

“Let’s stay here. And,” she said, “I’ve got the rank on you, and when a colonel says ‘let’s’ to a captain, what it means is do it. ”

There was no more stirring in Dalehouse’s groin; he was both angry and amused at his own anger. He said, “Let’s get this straight. Are you ordering me to fuck you?”

“No. Not at the moment, dear boy.” She grinned. “I hardly ever order officers to fuck me. Only enlisted men, and very seldom them, because it’s bad for discipline.”

“Are you saying the colonel ordered you to fuck him?”

“Danny dear,” she said patiently, “first, he couldn’t — I’ve got the rank. Second, he wouldn’t have had to. I’d fuck Guy any time. For any reason. Because he’s technically my superior officer and I don’t want to rub in the fact that I’m the one who’s commanding. Because it’d make things go smoother on the mission. Because it’s interesting to get it on with somebody half my size. I’d fuck a Krinpit if it would help the war effort, only I don’t know how we’d bring up the kids. But,” she said, “a girl’s entitled to a certain amount of non-goal-oriented recreation, too, and Danny, I really have the fondest memories of you from last year in Bulgaria.”

Fully relaxed, she rummaged under her for her clothes and pulled out another joint.

Dalehouse watched her lighting it. Her body was tanned over every inch — no bikini marks — and looking a lot better than the fishbelly white that came after a while on Jem. She scratched between the crease that hid her navel and her pale pubic hair, exhaled peacefully, and passed him the joint. The thing was, Dalehouse conceded to himself, that he really had the fondest memories of her last year in Bulgaria, too, and it did not seem to matter that he also had some bad memories.

“You know the thing that gets me about you?” he asked. “You make me laugh about a hundred different ways. Lean over this way, will you?”

When they had used each other up, they rested for a moment. Then Margie jumped up and dashed into the water again. Dalehouse followed; they splashed and roared; and as they came out he was astonished to discover that suddenly he didn’t feel quite used up anymore. But Margie was calling up the bluff, “Tinka! Time hack!”

“Thirteen twenty hours, ma’am!”

Margie slipped into her fatigues quickly and leaned over to kiss Dalehouse as he was standing with one leg in his pants. “Time to get back. I’ve got a busy afternoon before the dance, and Danny, I’d appreciate it if you’d do something for me.”

“What’s that?”

“Teach Tinka how to do that balloon thing this afternoon.”

“Why?”

“I want her to run an errand for me. It’s important.”

He considered. “I can get her started, anyway. But I don’t know if she can learn it all in a few hours.”

“She learns fast, I promise. Come on — I’ll race you back!”

They ran the hundred meters. Marge got off first, but by the time the outpost was in sight Dalehouse had caught up with her. As he passed she reached out and took his hand and pulled him back to a walk. “Thanks for the exercise,” she panted.

“Which exercise — swimming, running, or fucking?”

“All of them, dear Danny.” She breathed hard, and then, just before they got within earshot of the perimeter guards she halted him. “One thing I ought to mention to you,” she said.

“What’s that?”

“I just want to set the record straight. With Nguyen Tree I’m fucking. With you I was making love.”

Twelve on perimeter guard, two in sick bay, three in the comm shack, and eight more on the other twenty-four-hour details that always had to be manned: that left over a hundred and twenty people in the Food camp, and nearly every one of them was at the dance. Marge congratulated herself as she flung through a hora. It was a big success. When the dance ended and the rhythm changed to something Latin, she shook off the three men who came toward her. “I’ve got to sit this one out and catch my breath,” she said. “After the next number I make my little speech. Then you’re all on.”

She retreated behind the little stand and sat cross-legged on the ground, breathing deeply. Marge Menninger’s parents had endowed her with good genes, and she had taken care of the equipment; after a long day and a solid hour’s dancing she was not tired and her wits were all about her. And the day had been not only long but good. She had got the camp over their scare about the loss of the three people by treating it as if it didn’t matter. She had brought them all together in the dance. She had laid the groundwork for Tinka’s little mission, organized an effective perimeter guard, broken the back of the job of unloading and stowing cargo, and begun six other tasks equally important. And she had got it on with Dan Dalehouse, on terms of her own making but obviously acceptable to him. That was a personal matter, but not unimportant. Marge was careful to keep an eye on long-range prospects. And as a possible permanent future pair, if permanent pairing turned out to be the way things were going to go on Jem, Dalehouse was the best bet she had yet identified.

It was Marge Menninger’s conviction, recent but certain, that this job was what she had been born for. The important thing was to do it the right way, which was her own way, which had to be laid out from day one. No false starts. A happy camp — plenty of work to keep them busy and plenty of time to enjoy themselves. And a productive camp. Jem belonged to her and hers, and now they had it.

While she was waiting for the cha-cha to end she considered the next day. Ship One would be empty, and a team could be started on separating the two halves and moving them into position in the perimeter.

Dalehouse or Kappelyushnikov — which? the Russian, she decided — Kappelyushnikov could be briefed on Tinka’s mission, or at least enough of it so that he could escort her partway to the Greasy camp. A work team could be organized to start putting up poles for the farm plot. She would meet and learn to know at least six of the advance party; in two weeks, she should know everything she had to know about everyone in the camp. Orders would be cut naming Guy Tree as her G-l and Santangelo as G-2. The others she would wait on; there might be people she hadn’t met yet who should have the jobs. And, if things went well, during the three hours she allowed herself for a midday break, she would go for a walk in the woods. If you could call them woods. They needed to be dealt with too: Knock down some of those skungy ferms, scoop out some farm ponds to drain that soggy swamp. It would work — all they needed was a couple of bulldozers. Which reminded her that she needed at least to make a first approximation of a requisition list for the next shipment from Earth. That couldn’t wait. With all the fuss the civilians were kicking up, Marge Menninger wasn’t sure how many more shipments there would be. She already knew a number of goodies she wanted, but the old-timers would probably think of more. So she would need to talk to some of the old-timers. Morrissey, Krivitin, Kappelyushnikov — she would fill in the others later.

The smell of pot from beyond the stand pleased her. She thought of lighting up before getting up to make her speech — it was another way of showing her personal style. But it had been less than half an hour since the last one, and Marge knew her tolerances exactly; it might make her fuzzy.

The cha-cha ended, and the girl at the tape machine, looking toward Margie, switched it off. Marge nodded and climbed the stand.

The laughter and buzz dwindled as the hundred-odd people turned to face her. She smiled out at them for a moment, waiting for silence. They looked exactly like the plebes at West Point had looked, exactly like the audience in the Senate hearing room, like every audience she had ever faced. Marge was in touch with her audiences; she could always make them like her, and for that reason she liked them.

“Welcome to the first weekly Food Bloc Expedition Saturday Night Dance. I’m Colonel Marjorie Menninger, USA, and I’m your camp commander. Some of us already know each other pretty well by now. The rest of us are going to get to know each other very well very soon, because when you come right down to it we don’t have much choice, do we? I’m not worried about that, and I hope you’re not. We are a pretty select bunch.” She allowed her gaze to drift past the audience to the edge of the lighted area, where two of her grunts were holding another while he vomited, and added, “Although you might not know that at first.” A small laugh, but genuine. “So let’s start getting to know each other. Guy? Saint? Where are you?” She introduced Tree and Santangelo as they stood forth. “Now Vince Cudahy — are you there? Vince is a mathematician, but he’s also our chaplain. He used to teach at Fordham, but he’s agreed to be nondenominational for the purposes of this mission. So if any of you want to get married, Vince is authorized to do it.” Small chuckle. “He’s a little old-fashioned, so he’d prefer it if you’re of different sexes.” Somewhat larger laugh, but a little questioning note in it. “And in case you do,” she went on, “or even if you don’t, you ought to meet Chiche Arkashvili. Cheech? There she is, our medical officer. Try not to get sick over the next twenty-four hours, because she’s still setting up. But then she’ll be ready for business, and back home in Ordzhonikidze her specialty was obstetrics.” No laugh at all this time. She hadn’t expected one. She gave them a moment to draw the logical conclusion and then pressed it home. “As you can see, we’re planning a permanent base, and I’m planning to make this the best duty any of you have ever had so that a lot of you will want to re-up and stay here. And if you do — and if any of you take seriously what I’ve just been talking about and decide to settle down and have a family on Jem, I’m offering a special prize. A thousand petrobucks for the first baby born in our camp — provided you name it Marjorie, after me.” She waited a beat and added, “Two thousand if it’s a boy.” She got the laugh she wanted and closed it out. “Now on with the dance.” And as the music started she jumped off the platform, grabbed the first man in reach, and started them all going.

For the next half-hour Marge Menninger played hostess, at which she was very, very good. She danced with the men who didn’t much dance, kept the music going, made sure the drinks kept coming. What she wanted was for everybody to have a good time. The next day was time enough for them to start thinking about permanent colonies and how much choice they would be likely to have about extending their stay. When chance permitted she got a word in with the people who had known what she was going to say, asking how they thought it had gone. It had seemed to go well. It made her feel good, and she found she was really enjoying the party. She drank with the drinkers, smoked with the dopers, and danced with everyone. It was safe enough now. When the time came to shut the dance down Tinka would let her know, and meanwhile Tinka would keep an eye on her colonel.

Coming back from the brand-new latrine, Marge paused to enjoy the sight of her people having fun. It was going to be all right! They really were a good bunch, hand-selected, fit, well trained. Whatever she had said to anyone else, in a secret, inside part of her heart Marge had felt a small but unsettling fear that her first really independent command might take qualities she hadn’t known she would need. So far, not. So far, everything was going precisely as she had planned, according to the priorities she had laid out in her own mind. Priority 1, safeguard the integrity of the unit. And it was safeguarded; she could see the perimeter guards in regular patrol, a little disgruntled at missing the dance but carrying out their orders meticulously. Priority 2, accomplish the mission assigned. And that was well on the way. Priority 3, subject to accomplishing 1 and 2, make it a busy and happy camp. And that looked good, too.

She walked around the outskirts of the dance, nodding and smiling, not quite ready to get back on the floor. Tinka appeared beside her, one hand on her government-issue pouch, looking questioningly at her. Marge shook her head. She didn’t need another joint just then. She was feeling happy and relaxed, but just the littlest bit light-headed, Part of it was the smarmy heat and the peculiar instability that came from weighing only about three-quarters what she had been used to for ten years. But she was feeling a little edgy, too, and checking dates in her mind, she thought she knew why. When she came near the medical officer she said in her ear, “Got your freezers going for the sperm and ovum bank yet, doc? Because I think I’m getting ready to make a donation.”

“Noon tomorrow we’ll be ready,” Chiche Arkashvili promised. “But the way the boys and girls have been disappearing into the bushes, I don’t know if we’ll need it.”

“Better to have it and not need it than need it and not have it. If I could, I’d—”

She stopped. “What would you do, colonel?”

“Forget it. Don’t let me keep you from urgent business,” said Marge amiably, and watched the doctor go on toward the latrine. If she could, she’d get a whole stock of frozen sperm and ova from Earth, because the bigger the gene pool you started with, the better the chances you’d have a healthy, stable population in another two or three generations. But she was not quite ready to put that request in her next letter to Santa Claus. She would have quite enough trouble with the items she was already determined to requisition, and from Christ’s own number of light-years away her powers of argument were limited.

A few meters away the Bulgarian girl was in some sort of altercation with Stud Sweggert, the sergeant Marge had put onto the first of her ships. Normally she wouldn’t have interfered, but there was something she wanted from Dimitrova.

“Tinka,” she said softly over her shoulder.

“Yes’m.”

“Stay with.” Marge went up to the arguing couple, who stopped as she came close. “Sorry to break this up,” she said.

Dimitrova glared at her. Feisty little prunt; it crossed Marge’s mind that her first impulses about Ana Dimitrova might have been best, but it was not a useful thought anymore. She discarded it.

“There is nothing to break up, colonel,” the girl said. “The sergeant wished to show me something I did not want to see.”

“I bet he did, honey,” Marge smiled. “Will you excuse us a second, sergeant?” And, when he was out of earshot, she asked, “How is your Indonesian, Dimitrova?”

“Indonesian? It is not one of my four-oh languages, but I believe I could translate a document satisfactorily.”

“I don’t want a document translated. I want to know how to say, ‘Good morning. Where is the baseball park?’ ”

“What?”

“Shit, lady! Just tell us how to say it.”

Ana hesitated and then, with some disdain, said, “Selamat pagi, dimana lapangan baseball?”

“Um.” Marge rehearsed it to herself for a moment, glancing at Tinka. The orderly shrugged. “Well, write it down for me. Now, how do you say, ‘Have you a map?’ ”

“ ‘Saudara punja peta?’ ”

“Got that?” asked Marge, looking at the orderly. “Not sure? All right, Dimitrova, take Tinka to my office and write it out for her. Make sure she gets it right.” For a moment she thought the Bulgarian might object, but then she nodded and the two of them started away.

Sergeant Sweggert was still standing there, three meters away, watching her with calm interest. Margie laughed. “What are you doing, sergeant — waiting to ask me for a dance? Or do you want to show me that little thing you were so anxious to drag out for Dimitrova?”

“Hell, colonel. You’ve got me all wrong.”

“I bet I do. Sweggert,” she said good-naturedly, “you’re not a bad guy, but it’s against my policy to, ah, fraternize with enlisted men. Except in an emergency, of course. And what you’ve got to show has been widely seen already, I guarantee you.”

“Ah, no, colonel! It was educational. They got a tame gasbag here, and it’s real interesting.”

“Yeah?” She looked at him more closely, and from the way he stood, the way his head sank into his shoulders, she realized that the man was pretty full of something. But he was also RA, and whether they chose to call the present time night or day, as a practical matter Kung made it pretty close to broad daylight. “I’ll take a look,” she decided. She followed him behind the cook-tent, and there was one of the balloonists, clinging to a rope and singing softly and mournfully to itself. It was much bigger than the female she had seen at Camp Detrick, but obviously in some sort of trouble.

“What’s it saying?” she demanded.

The sergeant said with a straight face, “I really don’t know, ma’am. You want to hold him a minute? Just pull down on the rope.”

Margie looked at him thoughtfully for a moment, but he was right — it was interesting. She pulled on the rope. “Damn thing’s strong,” she complained. “Hey, Sweggert! What are you doing?”

He had leaned down and pulled something out from under a tarpaulin. “Just a strobe light, ma’am.”

“And what are you going to do with it?”

“Well,” he said cunningly, “I haven’t never seen it, but the guys say if you give one of these things a flash it’s real interesting.”

She looked from him to the sad, wrinkled face of the balloonist, and back. “Sergeant,” she said grimly, “it damn well better be or I’ll have your ass on toast. Flash your fucking strobe.”

“Is that an order, ma’am?”

“Flash it!” she snarled. “Or—”

And then he did.